“Yes, O Great One,” Nadine said, finally seeing two bars on the screen. “I hear and I obey.”
“I am not the general,” he growled. “I just don’t want you wandering off until we have all our people lined up.”
“So, if I fling your phone out the window, you’ll not freak out?” she asked innocently.
For answer, he hit a dial on the steering wheel. A mechanical voice asked who he would like to call.
“Conan.” Magnus shot her a sizzling look. “I don’t need you to obey. I’m just hoping for a little help here.”
“Fun! Jo-jo never let me play with the cars.” She turned on the interior light and studied the dash.
Conan’s voice came through the speaker. “Tell me Nadine’s with you.”
“I’m here, sweetcakes,” she crooned in delight. “I adore this car. If it only came with handcuffs, it would be perfect.”
“Black box, under the passenger front seat,” Conan responded. “Tell me Magnus is still alive.”
“I’m here,” Magnus growled. “I may push the lady out so I can go where I need to go. Got anyone in the vicinity to pick her up?”
“You do that, and I’ll personally blow up your sweet car. Or maybe just steal it,” she added thoughtfully. “I think that’s the best idea. You get out and let me drive this mechanical marvel to the general. And then you can set him on fire. It’s an automatic detonator like his, isn’t it? The one on your engine?”
“No, I can’t explode the car from long distance. It explodes itself. And the detonator isn’t turned on.” Magnus gave her a swift glare, but the road was too narrow and dark for him to take his eyes off it for long.
“Look, I know you don’t like planning, bro,” Conan said soothingly, “but you can’t go off half-cocked this time. Pull over and let’s sort this out. What’s this about detonators?”
Ignoring the pertinent question, Magnus complained, “What, and have the general’s thugs find us while we’re out in the middle of nowhere? I can take on a couple of shitheads at once, but not half the army. I can’t even get surprise on my side. I’m pretty sure he’s tracking us just like you are.”
“You planning on ramming the gates and bulldozing through the front door?” Conan asked with heavy sarcasm.
Nadine chuckled. She was pretty sure that was just exactly what Cro-Magnon man planned to do. “Yeah, but he’s heading for the wrong gates, which is what has him steamed. We can’t turn around and go the right direction without giving away that we finally know where Jo-jo is.”
Conan whistled. “Can I go after him, pretty please? Is he somewhere we can drop helicopters?”
Nadine sighed. “Back to detonators, folks. The man has them. Helicopters or any other surprises are out. We don’t know where the explosives are. We need a back door into his computer, or I need to walk right through the place and pull the plug. I vote for the latter.”
Silence. Nadine didn’t like silence so well.
“I’ll get back to you,” Conan said. And the speaker clicked off.
“There is no element of surprise if we turn around,” Nadine repeated softly, knowing Magnus was sitting there steaming. “He’s sitting up there on a mountaintop with no neighbors around him. There’s only one road in. If we park on the highway and hike ten miles, he’ll still know and have lots of time to prepare.”
“I can trade in this car,” Magnus suggested.
“By the time you arrange it, he’ll be gone. Right this minute, he’s fixated on us and the car. If you give him time to get his rationality back, he’ll realize we’re calling in help. Right now, if I’m guessing correctly, he thinks he has the upper hand because he’s separated us from the herd.”
“Won’t we surprise him by turning around instead of heading for Palm Springs?”
“That would probably make him really happy, although it ought to puzzle him for a while. Unfortunately, Jo-jo is a lot like you. It must be the military mindset. He doesn’t waste time on puzzles. He takes advantage of opportunity. He’s good at long-term strategic planning, but he can’t do that here. So we need to be better at planning than he is.”
Magnus used a few words Nadine hadn’t heard him use before. For a tough fighter, he was exceedingly polite in everyday situations. She assumed he was reverting to military mode. That scared her a little, but her choices were few. She needed his back-up.
“I can pull plugs,” he decided, not giving in yet. “I can smash his computers into microchips.”
“You don’t think he’s prepared for that? The computers will be backed up. They’ll have fail safes. And if he’s really gone around the bend, they’ll be set to trigger nuclear bombs if touched. Jo-jo is good at what he does. You’ve got to let me go in after him,” she said as firmly as she was able while her brain shrieked in terror. “He won’t see me as a threat.”
The tension inside the car reached explosive proportions. Magnus was very good at holding back.
“Equal but different,” she reminded him nervously. “You have no right to control my choices, not any more than I could control your decision to drive off without me. I chose to join you. You can choose to drive your car straight through Woodstar. I get to choose going in the back door. We can’t go forward together until we get this straight.”
Amazingly, that silly speech released some of his tension. Magnus cast her one of his eyebrow-lifting looks.
“We’re going forward together?”
Her foolish heart did a happy dance at his suggestive tone. The rest of her melted in a puddle of lust. “I’d rather not go alone.” She could be as ambiguous and cautious as he, even while stating all her hopes and dreams.
“If I say you can’t know what you want, you’ll jump down my throat, right? Even if I have a little more experience?”
“You don’t have any experience at being me. So let’s just start with right now and you accepting that the general won’t blow up anything if he sees me, but he might if he sees you.” Nadine held her breath as the car cruised through the desert night, getting further away from their target.
“I can accept that,” he agreed. “What I can’t accept is sending you in there alone.”
“OK, that’s a start. How do we debug your car so we can turn around?” Nadine bunched her fingers into fists, wishing for alternatives, knowing there were none.
“Buzz Conan. Get us a new car. We’ll need a driver to continue taking this one to Palm Springs, making the general drool thinking his cohorts will have me and the car. I’d prefer a rugged-terrain vehicle for us. I don’t want to drive up to Woodstar’s door if it can be avoided.”
“You’re very good at plotting when you get past action-hero mode,” Nadine said, punching Conan’s contact number.
“Still don’t like it,” he grumbled. “Plotting requires considering consequences. When it was just me, consequences didn’t matter. They’re damned painful under current circumstances.”
Conan’s voice spoke curtly through the speakers before Nadine could make her request. “I can’t locate the general’s computer. Do you know what server he’s using?”
“He moves them constantly and keeps adding new ones. I’ve been off his grid too long to have any idea. If you weren’t able to trace my messages earlier, you don’t have a chance now, and we’re all out of time.”
“New plan,” Magnus said. “We’re going up there. The car is going to Palm Springs. Bring us new phones while you’re at it, just in case he’s finally tapped into the one we’re using.”
While the men discussed logistics, Nadine tried to tap into Jo-jo’s thoughts. It was getting late, but he was an insomniac. She couldn’t focus enough to reach him, though. She needed peace and quiet, and she wouldn’t be getting them anytime soon. The Oswin men were anything but peaceful and quiet, especially in full war mode.
That was actually rather reassuring. It meant her head was a safer place with all that energy surrounding her, blocking out others.
“If we give you a stun
gun, can you use it?” Magnus asked, bringing her back to the moment.
“Jo-jo had us target shooting with hand guns before he even married Mom. I hate them. A stun gun, I might manage. Pepper spray, tranquilizer darts, bring them on.”
“Nadine is extremely coordinated,” Magnus told his brother. “Load her up. I’d prefer a howitzer, but the general has hostages.”
“The patients at Woodstar are particularly good ones,” Nadine said. “They have utterly no notion of how to fight back, run, hide, or even get out of your way.”
Both men cursed vividly.
***
Magnus reluctantly surrendered his no-longer-stealthmobile in a small town just off the interstate. The former Marine who accepted his keys whistled in appreciation even before Magnus explained a few of the more useful components.
He saw Nadine grimace at the stripped down Hummer they received in exchange. She hadn’t had enough time behind the wheel, but she seemed to have enough mechanical ability to understand the dashboard. They’d be driving back roads. He had to squash his protective instincts and give her more driving practice.
Hiding his wince, Magnus handed her the keys. “Your turn to drive.”
That earned him a hug that had his blood pumping.
“I don’t suppose Oz has a honeymoon suite in his compound?” she whispered before she pried herself off him and headed for the driver’s side.
Magnus took a deep breath to cool down before climbing in. She felt too damned good in his arms, and the mention of honeymoon suites wasn’t helping. He wanted to take her to the airport and fly her to Tahiti, safety, and a bed, and let the general blow himself up.
He buckled himself in and taught her the Hummer’s instruments. She was an eager student. It didn’t take long before she grew impatient with his caution and set the wheels rolling. Amazingly, she steered through the parking lot gate without coming close to scratching the bars. Excellent spatial perception.
“Oz’s house will be full of wedding guests,” Magnus reminded her. “If we come out of this alive, I’ll take you anywhere you like.”
“Really?” Her voice lit up the interior better than the sun. “You’d really take me to Costa Rica or Australia if I asked?”
“Really. I thought women wanted London and Paris.” He dug his fingers into the seat as she hit the gas and steered back up the road they’d just traversed. At least he knew there were no dangerous hurdles ahead—not until they reached the general’s mountain.
“They’re cities,” she said as if that was explanation enough.
And it was. Cities had too many people to mess up her mind. He got it.
“I’m not sure understanding you is good for my mental health,” he complained. “But I’m good with jungles and deserts.”
She laughed nervously and kept her gaze on the road. “Just think of me as a jungle and we’re good.”
“A screaming-monkey, snake-infested jungle or shady, steamy and exotic?” he asked, releasing his grip on the seat to cross his arms and let his mind travel to jungles, beds, and sex.
“Ummm . . .” She dared a glance in his direction. “Do I have to answer that?”
“Nope. You just have to keep your eyes on the road and get us to Woodstar in one piece.”
“And you want me driving why? I didn’t notice any AK47s in our arsenal.”
Honesty was the only policy he knew with Nadine. “I want you to have the ability to run like hell if necessary. If equality is what you want, then you need all the knowledge you can get. I can’t teach you to survive in the woods right now, so the car it has to be.”
“Swell.” She gunned the motor and steered the next curve at breakneck speed.
“Snake infested,” he decided gloomily. “Can I have the flower-wearing exotic scenario when this is over?”
“Naked Tahitian lady coming up,” she said much too cheerfully as she floored the engine toward their doom.
Twenty-eight
At the turn from the highway toward Woodstar, Nadine reluctantly surrendered the keys and got out of the car to exchange positions. With the dark woods all around them, Magnus caught her in front of the engine. In despair and weariness, she leaned into him. His strong arms provided the backbone she needed for these next hours.
His erotic kiss gave her the incentive to survive. The knowledge that he cared enough to teach her how to stay alive provided a warm bubble of happiness to shield her from what was to come.
The general had taught her how to kill. That wasn’t the same as teaching her to live. So many things were more clear when she had the freedom to examine them.
“This is not a suicide mission,” Magnus reminded her. “You are more important than anyone else in there, got that? I know that sounds cruel, but you are unique, you possess vital information, and we need you alive.”
“I can’t think like that,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around him and kissing his jaw. “You just have to trust that I’ll do whatever’s best to stop Jo-jo.”
He shuddered and nearly squeezed the breath from her. “Can you think of me, just a little? Imagine how I’ll feel if anything happens to you, and think twice before doing anything rash?”
She chortled against his shoulder. “You’re the one who’s likely to go off half-cocked, not me. I’m just a nerd. Promise you’ll stop and think, no matter what it sounds like in there?”
That he really cared what happened to her melted her heart, but she’d been fooled before. She simply counted on his formidable brain for now.
“We’re talking about breaking and entering,” she reminded him. “We could be behind bars for a long time. Sure you want to do this?”
“Code word, Mr T,” he said in grim acknowledgment, letting her go. “Don’t be afraid to use it.”
The dog’s name would remind her of Vera as well as Magnus—all she loved in the world. She wouldn’t use it in vain.
Magnus drove the vehicle off road half way up the mountain. He found a solid clearing, turned it around, and left the keys in their agreed-upon hiding place.
Nadine resisted the idea of driving off without Magnus, but that’s what he was telling her to do if anything happened to him. She had to ensure that nothing happened to him.
They hiked the rest of the way through the woods, their dark jeans and hoodies blending with the cool night. It would be dawn soon. They needed to hurry.
“Check the mic,” Magnus whispered into his as the villa’s lights came into view. His husky voice in her ear from the clip caused a pleasurable shiver.
She’d let her hair loose to frizz around her face. She’d have to hope no one noticed the phone clip.
She tapped the tiny button attached to her bra. Magnus nodded that he heard it. She felt right at home with the crazy spy equipment that Conan had provided. She didn’t feel quite so secure in the woods with lions and tigers and bears. She jumped at every rustle.
“We need to circle the building, locate the exits,” Magnus said worriedly.
She looked at the vast wall around the villa, glanced at the sky, and shook her head. “No time. There are only two ways in and out of that fence. Once we’re inside the fence, they’ll spot us before we’re half way around the building. I have to go straight in.”
He muttered but didn’t stop her. Together, they traversed an unlit clearing outside the wall, to the trash pick-up gate at the rear that Nadine had chosen for her entrance. Magnus easily picked the simple lock.
He grabbed her and kissed her quickly. “For good luck,” he murmured.
Throat too constricted for speech, Nadine just nodded and squeezed his hand. They both knew the dangerous insanity of her returning to the loony bin. She was just grateful Magnus didn’t lock her up for her own good—as the general had.
Mad Max realized that, too, which was the only reason he was letting her go. Nadine would love him for his understanding, if nothing else. He was a horrendously brave man to trust her instincts after he’d already lost someone he loved to t
he Big Crazy.
She kissed his bristly cheek and slid through the gate he opened before he could change his mind. It had been so much easier manipulating people with computer commands. Actually doing the job herself . . . was frightening.
In the months she’d been incarcerated in Woodstar, she’d learned every guard and his post and time schedule. She couldn’t count on any of that knowledge remaining the same. Adapt to live was her new motto.
Because it was so far out in the middle of nowhere, Woodstar had never needed to apply serious security. The guard at the back door liked to smoke and jaw with anyone else outside doing the same.
At dawn, he’d be patrolling the kitchen just to snatch coffee. Seeing no one outside, Nadine leaned against the wall by the kitchen door and listened to voices.
Two males, instead of just the usual one. The general must have brought some of his own people. How did she want to play this?
If she had a choice—in a darkened room with a computer screen. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a video game.
She opened the screen door and tested the door latch to the inner door. It was locked. No alarms screamed, but they might if she tried the keypad. She wasn’t ready to surrender her freedom this early in the game by attempting to break the security code.
Locating a hiding place behind the recycle bin, she dug a tin can from inside the container. It didn’t take an athlete to chuck a can against the kitchen window and hit it. She ducked down, peered around the corner of the bin, and waited.
Both guards appeared at the door.
“It’s just a cat or raccoon,” the usual guard protested. “You spook too easy.”
The more conscientious guard said nothing but rested his hand on his gun as he stepped out to examine the fenced yard in the dim light of dawn. Gun—bad. Nadine grimaced and flung a stone to the far corner of the yard.
Cigarette Guy pulled out his smokes. “Cat, like I said.”
Gun Guard moved stealthily toward the back fence.
She’d like to stone Cigarette Guy for blocking her path, but that wouldn’t get him moving. She heaved a bigger rock at the opposite corner of the yard, hitting the big trash Dumpster with a tinny thump.
THE RISK OF LOVE AND MAGIC Page 23
